Digital song downloads slipped further in first half of year

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Digital downloads of songs continued to fall
out of favor with Americans in the first half of the year, while
free and paid music-streaming revenue kept growing, even without
much of a bump from the launch of Apple Music.

That's according to mid-year sales figures released by the
Recording Industry Association of America on Monday. They show
overall music industry revenue fell a half percentage point to
$3.2 billion.

Revenue from paid subscriptions to services like Spotify and
Rhapsody grew 25 percent to $478 million, while revenue from free
services like Pandora grew 22 percent to $550 million. Streaming
revenue as a whole surpassed $1 billion in the first half of the
year for the first time.

Apple Music, the tech company's online music subscription
service, launched on the last day statistics were recorded.

RIAA CEO Cary Sherman said in a statement that while streaming
music revenues continued to grow healthily, he criticized the
rates being paid to labels and artists for streaming music,
saying they "do not always equal fair market rates." Certain
rates for Internet radio are set by government bodies.

The rise of digital streaming has helped the industry maintain
annual revenues around $7 billion since 2010, offsetting the
decline in revenue from digital downloads of single tracks that
began in 2013. But the level is far below the industry peak in
1999 of $14.6 billion when compact discs were dominant.

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Digital song downloads slipped further in first half of year

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Digital downloads of songs continued to fall out of favor with Americans in the first half of the year, while free and paid music-streaming revenue kept growing, even without much of a bump from the launch of Apple Music.